./ 



The New Country School 



A Survey of Development 

By W. K. Tate, 
State Supervisor of Country Schools for South Carolina. 



The Youth's Companion and 
School Improvement 

An address delivered by Warren Dunham Foster before a meeting 

of the Inter-State League for the Betterment of Public Schools, 

held under the auspices of the Summer School of the South, at the 

University of Tennessee. 



The Youth's Companion, Boston, Mass. 



For Better Country Schools 



The Companion's campaign for better rural schools is one of 
fundamental importance. The future progress of the business 
of farming is at the present time more dependent upon the organ- 
ization of an efficient rural school system than upon any other one 
factor. The colleges of agriculture and experiment stations have 
demonstrated beyond a doubt new and more profitable systems 
of farming. These systems of farming require intelligence and 
training for their execution. — F. B. Mumford, Dean College of 
Agriculture, University of Missouri. 

9 

The welfare of the country school is inseparably linked not 
only with the educational interests of country children, but with 
the prosperity of the basic industry of agriculture. It is the duty 
of all our people, whether residents of the country or not, to lend 
their aid to every movement which will tend to create and sustain 
a country school system that will be so good that no man will find 
it necessary to remove from his farm home in order to give his 
children a thorough common school education. — Payson Smith, 
State Superintendent of Public Schools, Maine. 

*• 

Commodious and sightly schoolhouses are community assets. 
Their scientific construction, convenient arrangement and sanitary 
appointment make for good health and greater efficiency. Their 
artistic adornment teaches silent but powerful daily lessons in 
right living, while spacious and beautiful grounds add to the joys 
and multiply the opportunities of childhood. Money spent for 
these things is therefore not an expense, but an investment. — 
W. D. Ross, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Kansas. 

9 

Success to The Companion's campaign for the improvement 
of school grounds and buildings. Such improvements will give a 
general impetus to the whole movement for better education and 
a more complete and satisfying country life. — C. G. Schui,z, State 
Superintendent of Education, Minnesota. 



A school expecting to reach the highest degree of efficiency 
must work under auspicious conditions. These conditions include 
a comfortable, attractive school building, surrounded by beautiful, 
well-kept grounds. The condition of the buildings and grounds 
is a correct index of the appreciation of the community for the 
school. The parents, and not the children, are to be judged by 
the appearance of the school buildings and grounds. — W. F. 
Doughty, State Superintendent of Education, Texas. 



V 






The New Country School. 

By W. K. Tate, 
State Supervisor of Country Schools for South Carolina. 



One of the results of the increased cost of living in America 
has been to direct attention to the rural districts, and to awaken 
a concern for the farmer's welfare that is genuine and universal, 
if not wholly altruistic. 

This interest in the welfare of the farmer is showing itself in 
many ways. The national and the state governments- are 
spending millions of dollars to spread the agricultural knowl- 
edge that will insure an increased productivity of the soil. 
The agricultural expert has left the academic shades of the 
college and experiment station, and upon the actual field of 
the farmer is showing how to apply scientific principles to agri- 
culture. State and nation are beginning to unite their forces- 
to improve the methods of financing farm operations and of 
marketing the crops to the end that the farmer himself may 
reap a greater share of the fruits of his labors. Social forces 
are combining to render more satisfactory the life of the men 
and women in the country. 

The farmers themselves have not been slow to respond to 
the new conditions. Cooperation is gradually taking the place 
of purely individual effort, and country life in America will in 
time assume the stability that it has attained elsewhere. 

As elements in this rural stability, social institutions will 
play an important part. Even the prospect of wealth is not 
sufficient to keep an intelligent farmer in a community that 
does not offer satisfactory educational and social opportunities 
to himself, his wife, and his children. In sections that do not 
develop the cooperation and the social cohesion necessary to 
maintain a good school there is a noticeable decrease in farm 
productivity. Sections that build and maintain good schools 
have usually succeeded in getting an improved social life along 



with them. The inhabitant of the city is just beginning to 
realize the vital connection between the cost of a pound of 
butter, or of a dozen eggs, and the equipment of the schoolhouse 
and the training of the teacher in the rural sections that furnish 
his food-supply. 

The improved status of agriculture is bringing with it a 
tendency on the part of the more ambitious men and women 
to remain on the farm. They are not satisfied with an imper- 
fect country school. 

We are all familiar with the shoe-box type of country school 
that until now has prevailed in most rural sections of the 
United States. The building was the accompaniment of a 
shifting population that was unwilling to build a schoolhouse 
more permanent than its own probable period of residence. 
The house was usually planned by a country carpenter, who 
made it a copy in miniature of the country church, without any 
attempt to adapt it especially to school purposes. 

This condition of affairs is rapidly changing. Within the 
last ten years nearly every state department of education in the 
United States has issued a bulletin containing plans for com- 
fortable and convenient schoolhouses.. The buildings frequently 
provide special rooms for manual training and domestic science, 
and usually an auditorium. Several of our states employ a 
school architect and a building inspector to insure in their 
schools proper sanitation and adaptation to purpose. Many 
states contribute from the state treasury a percentage of the cost 
of the country schoolhouse if built in accordance with approved 
plans. 

City school systems have for years enjoyed the advantage of 
having a trained administrator and supervisor, removed at least 
one step from the accidents of politics. Until now, we have 
thrown few safeguards about the country school. There is a 
growing sentiment in favor of the appointment of state and 
county educational officials by boards or commissions, just as 
our university presidents and city superintendents are now 
selected. The general adoption of this plan will give the 
country school an opportunity for consistent, harmonious 
development. 

Most of the progressive states now have a state supervisor of 
rural schools, who devotes himself entirely to the study of the 
country schools, and to making and carrying out plans for their 
improvement. 



The county is slowly but surely becoming the unit of admin- 
istration and supervision. The county superintendency of 
schools is an office destined to increase in influence, prestige, 
and remuneration. When the appointment is made by a 
county board of education, the superintendent becomes the 
expert educational engineer of his county. The more efficient 
he becomes, however, the more clearfy it will be seen that he is 
not able to do his work without expert assistance. In many of 
the progressive states, the county superintendent has already 
under his direction district superintendents, or county super- 
visors, of rural schools. 

Many of the country teachers are untrained and inexperienced. 
Probably the best place for training these teachers is their own 
schoolrooms ; the demonstration method is most effective. 

The State of Kentucky last year employed nearly a hundred 





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A 






: MODEL SCHOOL • UNITED STATES BUREA1T OF ED0CATIOS ■ 
j PROF K.B.DMSSLAfi. • SPECIALIST K SCHOOL HYGIENE 

COOPER Aud BAILEY AUCWTCCTS. 



rural school supervisors. Three years ago, one county in South 
Carolina employed a supervisor of rural schools as an experi- 
ment ; to-day, one-half the counties of the state have adopted 
the plan. Through the beneficent assistance of the Anna T. 
Jeanes Fund, county supervisors of negro schools have been 
empkyyed in numerous counties of the South. These county 
supervisors take an active part in the introduction and super- 
vision of manual training, domestic science, agricultural clubs, 
athletic work, and other school and community activities. 

Since the city first developed its schools into an efficient 



organization, paid the best salaries, and offered the greatest 
opportunities for advancement, it was only natural that the 
normal schools should have the city graded school in mind in 
the training of prospective teachers. Many of the normal 
schools are gradually modifying their methods and ideals. 
Many of them have established within easy reach of the campus 
model rural schools in which their students can have part of 
their practice-teaching under country conditions. 

To supplement the work of the normal school, training 
courses with practice departments are being established in high 
schools in one-third of the states. The young men and women 
who take these courses come from the country, and are in 
sympathy with country life. After completing the high- 
school training course, they make efficient teachers in rural 
communities. 

All these movements and efforts, however, are less significant 
than the evolution that is taking place within the walls of the 
country school itself. The course of study is undergoing a 
steady transformation to meet the interests and needs of the 
country child. The force bringing about this change does not 
come from without, but is a revolt in the heart of the country 
itself against outgrown ideals. 

We have found out that a course of study that continually 
fixes the mind of the student on things far away in some city, 
in some other age, or in some other hemisphere, to the neglect of 
affairs nearer home, has a tendency to blind him to the oppor- 
tunities at his door, and to make him dissatisfied with country 
life. We have discovered that the only way thoroughly to fit a 
boy for the country is to begin by teaching him the facts of 
his own environment. 

The daily experience of the country boy brings him into 
intimate contact with the ideas that are fundamental in science, 
literature, and art. He works in a nature-study laboratory 
that the city school could not buy. His daily tasks require 
the practical applications of elementary arithmetic, manual 
training, and elementary science. The country school has 
decided to make use of its own advantages, to live its own life, 
and thus to prepare its boys and girls for an efficient and happy 
life in the open country. 

In the experimental country school on the campus of the 
Winthrop Normal and Industrial College of South Carolina, 
the school day usually begins in the garden. Arithmetic is 



studied in connection with the measurements of the plots, the 
planting of the seed, the weighing and estimating of the crop, 
the study of the soil, the building of the fences. After the 
youngest children have laid out their garden plots and planted 
their seed, they must label the beds and make notes in their 




LEARNING DOMESTIC SCIENCE AT ROCK HILL. 

garden books of the time of planting and other facts connected 
with the garden. Thus arises the necessity for reading and 
writing. 

The receipts in the school kitchen, and the directions for the 
work of the day, written on the blackboard, serve as reading 




IN THE GARDEN OF THE WINTHROP SCHOOL. 



lessons. On the library table are displayed attractive books 
that deal with the things that the children are studying in the 
garden and on the playgrounds. The child who has been 
watching the mocking bird build a nest in the peach tree eagerly 
reads the bird primer. The group that has found the cocoon, 




IOWA CORN CLUB BOY PRIZE-WINNERS. 



and has watched the butterfly emerge from it, listens attentively 
to the story from the butterfly book. 

In that school the schoolhouse is like a country home, with 
its garden, its shop, its kitchen, and its living room. Much of 
the day the children spend in the open air, either in the garden 
itself, or on the big piazza. In the shop, there is little formal 
manual training, but with simple tools the boys and girls make 

the things needed in their 
Mk ^Ui work. In the kitchen, the 

luncheon for children and 
teacher is prepared and 
cooked during the progress 
of the school day. Much of 
the food is produced in the 
garden, and the children thus 
study all the processes con- 
nected with its production 
and preparation. 

Sometimes the process of 
adapting the school to coun- 
try needs consists in widening the walls of the schoolroom until 
they include the whole school district and its activities. Under 
the leadership of an especially energetic teacher, the schools of 
a certain county in Iowa have been notably successful. The 
county schoolhouse usually does not have an elaborate school 
garden, but every farm, every orchard, every kitchen, and 
every dairy in the district constitutes a part of the school equip- 
ment. The best farmer in the district is called upon to help to 
train the boys in corn-judging or in milk-testing. In fact, any 
man or woman in the community who does something excep- 
tionally well is made a part of the teaching force. 

Minnesota is one of the states that are encouraging by 
liberal appropriations this new kind of country school. The 
agricultural high school at Cokato, for example, employs a 
teacher of agriculture who devotes his mornings to his school 
classes, and his afternoons and Saturdays to demonstration 
work among the farms of the district. He has taught better 
seed selection, tile drainage, and dairying. He conducts near 
the school experimental plots for corn-breeding and the like. 

The school is provided with shops for carpentry and forge 
work, and with equipment for domestic science. It offers each 
year short courses for young men and women who have passed 



the regular school age, but who wish further training in agri- 
culture, farm arithmetic, bookkeeping, manual training, 
English, and civics. The school day for the short course 
begins at half past ten, after the morning chores have been 
finished, and closes at half past two, in order that the students 
may return home in time for the duties connected with the 
milking and feeding. The school maintains a teacher- training 
course in which young men and women are prepared for efficient 
work in the district schools of the county and state. 

The rural school supervisor of a North Carolina county 
encouraged the pupils and teachers to cultivate cotton in the 
waste ground round the schools. In one year the pupils of 
the county cleared from this source six thousand dollars, which 
was used for school improvement. 




A GIRLS' TOMATO CLUB IN SESSION. 



Corn clubs and tomato clubs were first organized in the 
Southern States. The movement has as its object the encour- 
agement of corn-growing and home industries in the South 
in order to modify the tyranny of King Cotton. The county 
superintendents and teachers secure the enrollment of boys who 
can get an acre of ground, and are willing to cultivate it with 
corn in accordance with directions. At the end of the year the 
corn is measured, and a report is made to the county superin- 
tendent and the county farm demonstration agent. The year is 
usually closed with a corn show at the county seat. 



The tomato club has done a beneficent work in stimulating 
the raising and canning of vegetables to take the place of the 
immense quantity that the Southern States have heretofore 
been compelled each year to buy in other markets. 

One of the greatest needs in the rural community is a more 
satisfactory social life. The distance that separates farmers, 
and the isolation attendant upon farm life, make necessary a 
special effort to remedy this defect. The school and the church 
are the recognized social institutions of the country, and they 
must work hand in hand to develop a satisfactory and whole- 
some community social life. 

The new country school will always have an auditorium that 
may be used as a community meeting place. There the school 
gives its entertainments; the community literary society, the 
farmers' organizations, and the women's clubs meet there ; in 
it are held the lyceum attractions that are gradually spreading 
into the country districts. In addition to its grounds and gar- 
dens, the country school will have its experimental and 
demonstration plots, under the direction of the principal and 
the teacher of agriculture, and there the farmers of the com- 
munity will meet at intervals for conference and instruction. 

The school farm will be tilled with the help of the school 
horses that pull the wagon in which the children are brought to 
the school. The playground will expand into a community ath- 
letic field, with a special building for the community fair. Beside 
the schoolhouse will be the teacher's home. The teachers will 
be appointed for a term of years, will live in the community the 
year round, and will take a leading part in the community 
social life. Near the schoolhouse will be the community 
church, with its resident pastor. About those two regenerated 
institutions will centre a new country life, efficient and socially 
satisfying. 



What The Youth's Companion Has 
Done for School Improvement. 

An Address Delivered by 

"Warren Dunham Foster Before a Meeting oe the Inter-State 

league for the betterment of public schools, 

held under the auspices of the summer school of the south, 

at the University of Tennessee, July 11, 1913. 

Madam President; Ladies and Gentlemen. 

When I was asked to speak to-night, I was under the 
impression that this was to be a little family party, where a few 
of us who were interested in ways and means for school 
improvement would sit round and discuss what had been 
done and what could be done. And I see that I was right — 
except in regard to the size of the family. It is because of the 
size of the family that I am particularly glad to be here. 

Notwithstanding the nature of the subject that Miss Moore 
and Doctor Ogden have given me, I feel free to speak frankly 
to you because The Companion thinks of itself, not as an out- 
sider but rather as one of you, and because The Companion 
does not feel that it is a chronicle of the cause of better educa- 
tion, but that it is itself a part, though perhaps a small part, of 
the movement for better education. 

The Companion, however, does not claim the power which 
evidently belongs to an Iowa weekly. In the last number of 
this county paper I read, " Owing to the overcrowded condition 
of our columns, a number of births and deaths are unavoidably 
postponed this week." 

The fact that this was an Iowa paper gives me an excellent 
opportunity to tell you my only claim to fame. For some time 
it was my good fortune to be a resident of Iowa, and, indeed, of 
Story County, where the Knapp family began its great work, 
and where Mr. Bradford Knapp lived for several years before 
he moved South. 

I am sure that Mr. Knapp has a more kindly and just feeling 



toward Iowa than has another distinguished Iowan of my 
acquaintance. At a dinner in Chicago this man was seated 
next to a young woman of the gushing type that we all know 
so well. 

" You're from Iowa, Mr. Jones," she gurgled. 

" Yes," Mr. Jones admitted. 

"A great many bright men come from Iowa," the young 
person gurgled. 

" Yes, and the brighter they are, the quicker they come," 
Mr. Jones answered, incisively. 

The beauty of that story, you know, is that you can tell it on 
any person, on any state. It's very convenient. Indeed, if it 
weren't for the fact that Mr. Knapp is to speak after me, I 
might have been tempted to credit the remark to him. 




ROCKY, GRASSLE 



TREELESS, FLOWEELESS. 



The roots of the school improvement campaign of The Youth's 
Companion go back to that September morning, more than 
sixty years ago, when James B. Upham first trudged to the 
yard of Fairfax District, No. 17. Before him was the school- 
house, traditionally dingy and plain. Behind it, and on his 
right and left, were open fields, which he and his fellows were 
forbidden to enter. Beyond, to the north, the hills rolled away 



10 



to the Canadian line ; to the southeast, they merged into a 
range of the Green Mountains. At the boy's feet was the 
schoolyard itself — rocky, grassless, treeless, flowerless. 

James found the inside of the building as unattractive as its 
immediate surroundings. The pail and dipper by the door were 
both rusty, and the water always tasted stale. What little learn- 
ing the master had he imparted generally by main strength. 
He undoubtedly gave James and his schoolmates more than he 
was paid to give. 




A FLAG RAISINl 



ON THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. 



Then and there the dreariness of the school and its surround- 
ings so sank in upon James B. Upham that he made the resolu- 
tion that meant that his life was to be given to the patriotic 
cause of school improvement. Finally he took the stage for 
the railway station, and so passed on into the world of active 
life. In 1872 he joined the staff of The Companion, and in a 
few years became a member of the Perry Mason Company, its 
publishers. In 1888, at his suggestion, The Companion 
launched a movement to place the American flag over every 
American schoolhouse. 

That The Companion should have organized its campaign for 
school improvement in this way is not at all strange. The 
Companion realized that no campaign has ever been successful 
unless the people most directly affected heartily support it. 
School improvement that is real and lasting is impossible with- 
out the support of the boys and girls themselves. To arouse 
the enthusiasm of pupils, patrons, teachers and officials, and to 

11 



give them experience in working together, The Companion 
began its general campaign for school betterment by a definite 
movement for a definite object — the schoolhouse flag. 

Often, indeed, the raising of the flag was followed directly 
by school improvement of an immediately practical sort. A 
flag went to a school in Sheridan County, Nebraska ; it literally 
could not be raised, for within a radius of many miles in that dry 
and treeless region there was nothing which could serve as a pole 




SOD SCHOOL BUILDINC 



So the teacher put up the banner inside the building, where, 
against the dark sod wall, it made a bright spot, which, she 
wrote, continually encouraged effort toward all that was worth 
while. Her next letter contains a vivid picture of the school 
patrons at work, plastering the schoolhouse. Her next tells of 
the building of a shed for the horses which the children rode to 
school, so that the great hay stack, which gave shelter as well 
as food, need no longer monopolize the dooryard. The flag 
may not have created the sentiment that led to one improve- 
ment after another, but the flag did put that sentiment to work. 
The flag movement grew rapidly. To the thousands of 
teachers and superintendents who wished to cooperate, The 
Companion sent circulars and booklets designed to be stimulat- 
ing and helpful. One method used to arouse the interest of the 
pupils themselves was a competition for the best essay in each 
state on the subject : " The Patriotic Influence of the American 
Flag when raised over Our Public Schools." The prizes, large 

12 



American flags, went not to the individual child, but to the 
school he represented. 

In February, 1891, The Companion suggested to all state 
superintendents of public instruction that every public school 
in the United States celebrate in just the same way the four 
hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. School 
officials enthusiastically agreed, and appointed as an executive 
committee the superintendents of public instruction of Tennessee, 
Michigan, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and an editor of 
The Companion. The National Educational Association coop- 
erated heartily. Congress set October 21, 1892, as a holiday. 
In his proclamation, President Harrison said : "It is peculiarly 
appropriate that the schools be made by the people the centre 
of the day's demonstration. Let the national flag float over 
every schoolhouse in the country, and the exercises be such as 
shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American 
citizenship." 

From the office of The Companion, the executive committee 
sent to all schools in the country a copy of the uniform pro- 
gramme and information telling how to prepare for and manage 
the celebration. 

October 21, 1892, came. Twelve million American school 
children stood together as one, and repeated The Companion's 
pledge of allegiance: "i pledge allegiance to my flag 

AND THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS : ONE NATION 
INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Since 

that Columbus Day twent}'-one years ago, millions of American 
school children have taken that pledge, so compelling in its 
heroic simplicity, and millions more are taking it to-day. 

The significance of that one day for the cause of school 
improvement is evident. For pupils, teachers and superin- 
tendents, officials and patrons, from one end of the country to 
another, to unite even once in holding the same inspiring 
exercises at the same time proved a powerful preparation — and 
a necessary one — for the more painstaking, less spectacular 
efforts which were to follow. 

The flag movement went on, and, in fact, is still going on. 
State after state has passed laws that require the raising of the 
flag over all of its schoolhouses. The Companion has begun 
the next step, and is now trying to place a silk flag within 
each schoolroom. 

The campaign directed specifically toward the improvement 

13 



of schoolhouse and grounds began on April 5, 1900. To 
each of the one hundred schools sending the best account of 
improvement, The Companion offered ten historical pictures. 
Upon request, booklets making practical suggestions for carry- 
ing out the work were sent to teachers and patrons. 

This undertaking was successful, but it proved the necessity 
for more definitely organized local work. So that same year 
The Companion began its intensive state-wide contests for 
school beautification. Campaigns were carried out in Illinois, 
New York, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Vermont, North Caro- 
lina, Alabama, West Virginia, Georgia and Oklahoma. 

In each state the 




THIS CERTIFIES 

THAT* THE* HOLDER* HAS* CON- 
TRIBUTED TO A FUND FOR 
THE* IMPROVEMENT* OF* OUR 

SCHOOLHOUSE 
and GROUNDS * * 



movement was under 
the general manage- 
ment of the state su- 
perintendent of public 
instruction. Every 
organization, official 
and individual, with- 
in reach, likely to be 
of service, was asked to cooperate, .and evidently did cooperate. 
It is impossible to pick out a few organizations or individuals 
who were particularly energetic. No doubt many of you here 
to-night worked heartily with The Companion. 

To all the teachers and to all the interested patrons of all of 
the contesting schools, The Companion sent helpful booklets 
and circulars. To aid teachers in raising the necessary money, 
The Companion gave them school-improvement coupons, little 
pieces of attractively decorated cardboard, which the pupils 
purchased themselves or sold to the patrons of the school. 

The procedure in Michigan in 1904 is typical. To the five 
hundred schools recommended by Mr. Delos Fall, State Super- 
intendent, as showing the greatest interest in setting out trees, 
shrubbery and vines, and improving their grounds in every 
way, The Companion gave a set of six historical pictures. To 
the ten schools which had done the best work, The Companion 
gave a large American flag. In making the minor awards and 
in selecting the schools to be visited as likely candidates for the 
major awards, Mr. Fall was guided by detailed information, 
written by each teacher upon carefully prepared blank forms 
and corroborated by local officials. Generally, plans and photo- 
graphs accompanied the written statements. 



14 



The pictures were awarded to over five thousand schools, 
and flags to about one hundred and twenty schools. Of the 
total number of schools taking part in the contests, there is 
no definite record, but it is known that there were tens of thou- 
sands of them. Although the intensive work was confined to 
these eleven states, the extensive work covered the nation. In 
making presents to schools in the states in which there was no 
state contest, The Companion tried to reward conscientious 
effort as well as successful achievement. 

No discussion of what The Companion has tried to do for 
school improvement is complete without a glance at the pages 
of The Companion itself. The Companion does not specialize. 
It is edited for and read by boys and girls, their fathers and 
mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. The Companion 
has been powerful and is powerful because it has regarded the 
normal home as the unit of American life. It has thought in 
the terms of the family, the whole family, and not of the 
individuals who make it up. A serious-minded but warm 
intimacy between these half-million families and The Com- 
panion enables it to speak with force on behalf of school 
betterment. 

I do not in any way apologize for this enthusiasm. If I did 
not heartily believe that The Companion's past had been 
glorious, that its present is useful to American life, and that its 
future will be still more gloriously useful, I would not be here 
to-night. 

But how does this enthusiasm affect school improvement ? 

Directly. 

In Number 1, Volume 1, Column 1, of The Companion for 
April 16, 1827, school improvement is given as one of the 
subjects which the new publication was founded to discuss 
helpfully. On the third page of that same issue there appeared 
an article, "Hints on Education." As a matter of fact, the 
hints were feeble and the education narrow, but the proof 
of The Companion's interest is none the less conclusive. 
And ever since 1827, that interest has found continuous 
expression. 

By imparting information rather than by argument, The Com- 
panion influences its readers. It has found that it can safely 
assume that if its readers have accurate and definite informa- 
tion, set forth in a clear and interesting form, they will be moved 
to intelligent action. Only upon the basis of information 

15 



YOUTH'S COMPANION. 



from persons who are actually engaged in doing whatever is 
under discussion, or are actually on the spot, watching other 
people doing, can there be made editorial comment of force, 
authority and conviction. Records of educational accomplish- 
ment, based upon such vital, first-hand knowledge, are certain 
to lead to energetic imitation all over the country. The best 
way to discuss a national evil, you know, is to say nothing 
about the evil, as such, but to tell how real people in a real town 
did a piece of real work which, if generally imitated, would be 

likely to make the evil disappear. 
Not by talking about the problem 
of adult illiteracy in the country, 
but by describing Mrs. Stewart's 
moonlight schools, will you get con- 
structive action. Not by scolding 
the district and the teacher because 
the teacher is not a permanent social 
force in the community, but by 
describing Mrs. Josephine Preston's 
cottage homes in Washington, will 
you get other communities to take 
measures that will keep the teacher 
in one school until she becomes a 
real power in the country round about. To get things done, 
tell concretely how to do them. . That has been The Com- 
panion's plan. 

I must not go into details concerning what The Companion 
has tried to accomplish through its own columns. The ac- 
count would have the literary sparkle of an index. 

The story of what The Companion has tried to do for school 
improvement, and is now trying to do, is a simple one that has 
many parallels. But what account of well-meant effort is new? 
I have told the story freely and frankly because I was told to 
speak freely and frankly, and because I feel sure that you and 
The Companion are at work upon the same task — a task that 
must be well performed if this Republic is to endure. If I am 
right ; if The Youth's Companion is marching with you along 
the road which leads to the betterment of the fundamental 
institution of American life, — the common school, — The Com- 
panion is very grateful to the kind Providence whose existence 
it has always acknowledged. 



































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16 



To Aid School Improvement 



BOOKLETS. As long as the supply lasts, The Companion 
will send its booklets upon request. The applicant is under only 
one obligation — that the publication for which he asks will go to 
some one who can put it to good use in advancing the cause for 
which it was published. Booklets yet in print include : 

Ideal Country Schools, 

By the late Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Education 
of New York, James "Wilson, formerly Secretary of Agricul- 
ture, and William H. Barnes. 

Beautifying Home, Village, and Roadway, 

By Warren H. Manning and others. 

How to Set Out Trees and Shrubbery, 

By Iy. H. Bailey, Dean of the Cornell College of Agriculture. 

The Teacher's Problem, 

To aid the young teacher in rural school management. 

Suggestions for Home and Farm, 

By Martha Van Rensselaer of the Cornell College of Agricul- 
ture, W. T. Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, andB. T.Galloway, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. 

The New Country School. 



Reprinted Editorials Sent on Request Include: 

Young Voters as Citizens, The Income Tax, Common 
Sense and the Farm, The "Moonlight" Schools, 
A Community Pig, Remaking North Dakota, The 
Woman of the Village. 

INFORMATION. For possible use wherever in The Compan- 
ion place may be found for it, or in answering inquiries from readers 
interested in school improvement, The Companion is always glad 
to receive concise statements of significant instances of definite 
educational progress. We welcome first-hand accounts of sensible 
attempts to add to the efficiency of the public school system, and 
to make it of greater service to the home and the community, 
particularly in the village and open country. 

The Companion is glad to attempt to answer questions in the 
educational field. Often we can be of practical service by acting 
as a clearing house and referring readers to available sources of 
information. If you think we can help you, write to us. 

SILK SCHOOLROOM FLAG. For forty cents The Com- 
panion will furnish school officials and teachers a silk flag, 24 x 36 
inches in size, a colored copy of the Pledge of Allegiance, and as 
many schoolroom flag certificates as may be needed. Since the 
flag is distributed only as a means to further the patriotic ends set 
forth in this booklet, and is sold at less than cost, applicants must 
assure us that it will be used only in the public schools. 



Please Address 
Extension Department, The Youth's Companion, Boston, Mass. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




021 729 300 



"For Our Schools, Health, Comfort, 
and Beauty " 



-COMMISSIONER CLAXTON 



THE schoolhouse is the temple which we erect to the 
God of childhood. The schoolroom is the home of 
the child during the most important hours of the most 
important years of its life. The schoolroom, the school- 
house, and the school grounds constitute the best 
index to the degree of civilization and to the ideals of 
the community. Everything about the school should 
be beautiful, clean and wholesome. The sanitation 
should be perfect. The place where children go to 
prepare for life and gain strength for its duties should 
not be a hotbed for the germs of disease and death. 
That the time in school may be used to best advantage, 
the child should be under the most favorable conditions. 
No one does his best work otherwise. Since ideals 
formed in childhood from its environment and daily 
associations go with us through life, the cleanliness and 
beauty of schoolhouses and grounds are more powerful 
than all other agencies in determining the cleanliness 
and beauty of private homes and public buildings in 
the communities where the children live as grown-up 
men and women. The repulsive impressions of ugli- 
ness, dirt and disease accumulating from day to day, 
drive children from school. The attractiveness of 
beauty, cleanliness, sweetness and comfort increasing 
from day to day, is more powerful in bringing the child 
and all its interests to school, and keeping it there, than 
any attendance laws can ever be. As are the school 
and the schoolhouse, so will be the home, the city, the 
state and the nation. For every community the motto 
should be: "For our Schools, Health, Comfort and 
Beauty." — P. P. Ci«axton, Commissioner of Education, 
of the United States. 



